Examining the next generation of payment providers competing in the burgeoning digital commerce market

The rapid rise of online and mobile retail sales has opened up a new market for payments companies to pursue, and is also creating a new generation of online payment providers called gateways, which act essentially as the online version of an in-store payment terminal.

Companies like Braintree, Adyen, and Worldpay help process online transactions, which are growing much more rapidly than in-store sales.

Payment gateways specifically stand to benefit from the rapid growth of the online processing market, worth an estimated $10.7 billion this year, even though their revenue is a very small slice of the total. BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, estimates that the US online processing market will increase at a five-year CAGR of 13% to $17.5 billion by 2020, driven by the increase in online shopping volume.

Gateways could moreover be disruptive to the old guard of processors. For example, Alipay has become a top-ten global merchant acquirer almost overnight because of its massive processing volume through Alibaba's marketplaces. And the emergence of online-to-offline (O2O) and omnichannel commerce is giving gateways a chance to divert significant in-store volume away from legacy processors.

A new report from BI Intelligence explains what payment gateways do, the benchmarks on which they compete, their growth drivers, the key players, and assesses the potential for gateways to impact legacy processors.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

Payment gateways help e-commerce merchants accept online transactions. They serve as the online version of a payment terminal and front-end processor for online and mobile sellers. Gateways typically sell bundled services, including payment acceptance, data reporting, and fraud management.

Gateways have an opportunity to capitalize on the growing online processing market. BI Intelligence estimates that the US online processing market — from which gateways extract some of their revenue — will be worth about $10.7 billion this year. The market will grow to $17.5 billion by 2020, driven by the increase in online shopping. As online sales rise, gateways' addressable audience — e-commerce merchants — is getting both larger and more valuable, affording gateways an opportunity to seize and compete for more potential revenue.

Gateways pose threats to the old guard as more merchants embrace the online-to-offline (O2O) business model. Many of the most successful tech companies, like Uber and Airbnb, leverage an O2O model, in which customers pay for in-person goods and services digitally. With an early-mover advantage among these types of retailers, gateways might begin to displace revenue from legacy processors because they will substitute rather than complement in-store processing volume.

In full, the report:BI Intelligence

Explains how gateways function and compete with each other in the payments ecosystem.

Identifies the factors enabling gateways to capture long-term growth.

Forecasts the size of the online and in-store processing markets to give context on the industry gateways operate within.

Lists the key gateway providers and explains what makes each successful.

Assesses the disruption opportunity for gateways and how this will affect legacy processors.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now